Regional Issues
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N o t e s
1 . Roy, A. (1983). The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in B e n g a l. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2 . See Roy, A. and also J.N.Sarkar (1972). Islam in
B e n g a l. Calcutta: Ratna Prakashan; Eaton, R. (1994). The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
3 . See S.N. J h-a (1997). Collected articles on persecutions in B a r t ik -a. Calcutta.
4 . I owe this information to Syed S a m-ı m, a Dhaka film-maker and a knowledgeable source on B-a u l / F a k i r matters. I have witnessed similar interaction in northwest Bengal.
5 . Such as Mansur Ali of K u s h ti-a, a mainstream erudite who hints at the heterodox Fakir approach in parts of his Secret Koran book, published perhaps about 30 years ago.
Anne-Hélène Trottier was formerly a lecturer at the Medical Anthropology Department of The Bobigny Medical School in Paris, France. She is now in India thanks to a scholarship from the Indo-Canadian Shastri Institute and is studying d h r u p a d a n d working on her PhD thesis on ‘Woman and Women in the Fakir tradition’.
E-mail: rosane2@excite.com
S o u t h A s ia
A N N E - H É L È N E T R O T T I E R
Ever since Islam came to Bengal in the 13
t hc e n t u r y
(and probably earlier, through individual Muslims’
interaction with local bearers of other traditions) it
participated, via a merging of Sufi inputs with
ver-nacular strands of Vaisnavism (Vishnuism), tantrism
and local folk cults, in a very rich blend of religious
beliefs and practices in the lower strata of society.
The Fakir, as a sub-section of the Bengali B-a u l with a
more or less defined Muslim identity, are at present
the largest group in Bengal perpetuating this form of
‘Islamic syncretistic tradition’, to use Asim Roy’s
p h r a s e .
1In the complex picture of present-day
reli-gious politics of East and West Bengal, and in the
context of Bangladesh as the second largest Muslim
country in the world, these Fakir seem, somewhat
paradoxically, to be both under threat and very
much alive as contributors to local spiritual and
cul-tural vitality at a grassroots level.
A Case of Grassroots
Syncretic Sufism
The Fakir of Bengal
In territorial Bengal (i.e. the area comprising present-day Indian West Bengal and Bangladesh), folk religious syncretism has over the centuries produced a variety of cults and sects, amongst which the B--a u l
emerged in the late 15t hcentury as a major
group strongly influenced by Caitanya Vais-nav devotion and (post?–) Buddhist s a h a j iy-a tantrism. After Caitanya, the next figure of historic importance for the B--a u l was that of L-alan Shah or L-alan Fakir (?1774-?1890). Whereas Caitanya belongs to a sectarian Hindu movement that extends far beyond Bengal and has its focal mythological an-chorage outside Bengal (in Vrindavan and Mathura), L-a l a n is a product and proponent of purely Bengali syncretism. His hagiogra-phy and his teachings tell a story of merging Hinduism and Islam into a universalistic reli-gion transcending the boundaries of any single religion. As such, he is par excellence the B-a u l figure that all present-day B-a u l a n d Fakir identify with, to a greater extent than with Caitanya. The K u s h t i-a district (now in Bangladesh) where he spent most of his life and where his tomb is located, is in the heartland of territorial Bengal, and very much a central point in the geographical distribution of the B-a u l.
Before addressing B-a u l/Fakir syncretism in the present religious configuration of the two Bengals, brief reference should be made to the past development of Bengali Is-lamic syncretism.
The development of Bengali
Islamic syncretism
The spread of Islam in Bengal2was largely
rural, village-based, and the result of the in-teraction of immigrant Sufis with local pre-Aryan and Hindu cults and yogic and tantric practices and beliefs. Such interaction con-tributed, as early as the 13t h- 1 4t hc e n t u r i e s ,
both to the development of local forms of what would later be termed ‘heterodox cults’ and ‘folk Islam’, and to the expansion of agriculture over a largely untouched ter-ritory of jungle, marshes and waterways. Islam thus extended its presence as a reli-gion of the axe and plough, creating settle-ments and producing something of a ‘civi-lizing’ effect. It was, however, far removed from canonical Islam and far more a matter of saint cult. Bengali grassroots syncretism was a case of assimilating a new form of di-vine force, or grace, into an already multi-form substratum and a case of this addition – Islam – not being intrinsically or transcen-dentally powerful, but one of its being rele-vant through the charisma of individual leaders. The latter were the Sufi saints who were living embodiments and mediators of the new divine grace, and who did not claim this to replace the older substratum as a new religion. The case is thus not one of straight conversion to Islam, but of
active/interactive forms of syncretism that depend not on the pre-eminence of a tran-scendent divinity but on the latter’s merg-ing with, and thereby enrichmerg-ing, another pre-existing ordaining of the universe. In this process it is the living saint as a human-and-divine person who is the crucial actor, crystallizing and catalyzing people’s aspira-tions and beliefs in both the other-worldly and this-worldly dimensions of human life. These saints were simultaneously spiritual leaders, warlords and rulers for their con-stituencies, who would recognize allegiance only to them.
Such local forms of Islamic syncretism flourished in rural Bengal, particularly in the eastern areas, until a new development ap-peared on the scene of Bengali Islam a cou-ple of centuries ago. Under British rule, there emerged amongst the elites of the In-dian subcontinent a sense of religious iden-tity – both Hindu and Muslim. In the 19t h
century, the Muslim upper classes of Bengal, who had clung to an idealized and frozen self-image of ethnic and Islamic purity con-nected with their immigrant (Turkic, Afghan) origins and deliberately discon-nected from the ethnic and religious reali-ties of the local populations, woke up to the reality of their having somehow taken root in the land of Bengal and to the fact that the people over which they ruled were dread-fully un-Islamic by their Koranic criteria.
Vigorous efforts were launched by ortho-dox Muslim leaders to eradicate the impure vernacular from Bengali Islam. The conver-sion to ‘pure’ Islam often went hand in hand with laudable efforts at improving the social and economic conditions of the lowest stra-ta. In some places, open persecution hit the more heterodox groups, calling for total an-nihilation of all cults of a B-a u lt y p e .3Such
re-formist movements continued into the 20t h
century, and are still at work today. Fatwas specifically against the B-a u l and Fakir are documented in the literature.
The current situation
What is the picture now, considering that in Bangladesh the Muslim population has grown to 90% of the total – the Hindu popu-lation having dwindled due to emigration and considering that in Indian Bengal, com-munal hostility is alive as elsewhere in northern India? More than ever, B-a u l a n d Fakir tradition-bearers invoke the anti-com-munal teachings of L -a l a n, whose time was precisely that of growing reformist action in Bengal encouraging in both communities a sense of religious identity fraught with po-tential for conflict. L-a l a n was a child and lover of his particular motherland, Bengal, where the ‘little people’ had traditionally been mutual integrators of creeds and rites rather than opponents on communalistic g r o u n d s .
Of the many syncretistic heterodox groups and movements of the past docu-mented in 19t hand 20t h-century literature,
many seem to have disappeared. Members of such groups have gone more or less un-derground under pressure and persecution, so it is difficult to assess what remains alive. But L-a l a n and Fakir presence is very much a reality alongside that of another
universalis-tic group, the K a rt-a b h a j-a (in central Bengal). The B-a u l and Fakir remain the largest extant group at present, numbering perhaps sever-al hundred thousand persons.
The Hindu B-a u l and the Muslim Fakir share the same tenets of an esoteric quest based on the intimate human-divine connection within every human being, cultivated through a philosophy and practices that emphasize the human body as locus and means for finding the essence of God. The path is taught in the traditional guru-disci-ple relationship where the guru is like the figure of the above-mentioned Sufi saint, in whom the divine is accomplished, merged with the human.
The Fakir call themselves B-a u l. The B -a u li n a Hindu setting do not call themselves Fakir but Vaisnav – it may be that the differentia-tion is connected with the influence of the respective surrounding mainstream reli-gions. At any rate, and significantly, it ap-pears empirically that there is more syn-cretism on the Fakir side than on the B -a u l; the latter, in West Bengal at least, leaning more towards a strongly Vaisnav type of de-votion, while the Fakir of central territorial Bengal bring together the different strands. As one Fakir of K u s h ti-a told me: ‘There is Allah in every human being. Caitanya is the synthesis of R-a dh-a and Krisna, thereby there is Allah in Caitanya.’
Continued syncretism?
There is still considerable interaction in
northern Bangladesh4between the
hetero-dox Fakir and more mainstream imams, Sufis and m o l l a h s (figures of authority in the mosque and the m a d r a s a). All-night de-bates are held between leading proponents of the two approaches. Some orthodox Muslims are known to have substantial affinities with the heterodox tradition.5 I n
the lower strata of the population, but also increasingly in the educated urban elite, many people can be attracted to a charis-matic B -a u l guru, learn B -a u l songs, and seek initiation. Thus the syncretic approach with-in the context of an Islamic country still ex-i s t s .
However, the syncretic tendency, appar-ently the ‘natural’ one of the children of the Bengali motherland, is not the only factor at hand: there is the continued reformist aspi-ration of mainstream Islam. Many B -a u l a n d Fakir have been subjected to harassment and persecution in recent decades and, at another level, there is the appropriation by institutions of the vivid folklore surrounding the figure of L-a l a n, increasingly taken over by cultural authorities as part of an official Bangladeshi identity and heritage. The shrine of L-a l a n at K u s h ti-a is no longer in the hands of the Fakir wise men; L-a l a n ’ s a n-niversary festival is now officially organized by the local authorities. The food, tradition-ally given free to Fakir and B-a u l initiates, had to be paid for at the 1999 festival, a major breach of an age-old rule. The local govern-ment has a construction plan underway for a big cultural complex near the shrine. By turning L -a l a n into a ‘respectable’ part of Bangladeshi heritage, will the political and religious powers-that-be succeed in steriliz-ing this still lively force of counterculture
in-herent in Bengali syncretism? Bangladesh is still a frontier land, from an Islamic, cultural, economic, and developmental point of view. As long as the spirit of L -a l a n is alive, say the Fakir, there is much this
